Tuesday, 13 May 2014

Failing to plan; planning to fail

Many Indians, many chiefs, but no unified commander

by Ajai Shukla

Business Standard, 13th May 14

If evidence
were needed of the UPA’s shambolic defence planning, try this. The military’s
15-year equipment forecast, the foundation of long range equipment planning,
requires twice the money that current budgeting levels provide. Essentially,
the defence ministry has signed off on a national security plan that it cannot
fund.

The military’s
Long Term Integrated Perspective Plan (LTIPP) forecasts weapons requirements
for the 12th, 13th and 14th defence plan
periods, i.e. for the 15-year period from 2012-13 to 2026-27. According to
this, the army, navy and air force will acquire Rs 31 lakh crore ($500 billion)
worth of equipment during this period. That amount will be available, provided
the defence capital budget continues expanding at the 10-year average rate of
13 per cent per annum. Yet a closer look reveals that the requirement is hugely
underestimated, based as it is on current prices. It ignores inflation, which
is 10-12 per cent per annum in defence equipment; it disregards foreign
exchange rate escalation, although the LTIPP was drawn up when the dollar was
Rs 53; and it is oblivious to growing manpower costs that steadily erode the
capital budget.

Officers
who are realistic about financial planning say funding the LTIPP would require
2.5 to 3 times the current procurement allocations. Even if a new government
stepped up defence spending from the current 52-year low of 1.74 per cent of
GDP to, say, 2 per cent of GDP, that would buy only half the equipment projected
in the LTIPP. Given fiscal realities, anything more than two per cent is
unlikely.

This raises
a larger, crucial question: should the military’s equipment planning be
circumscribed by a hard-nosed assessment of fund availability? Or should
equipment projections be based on threat assessment with the government bound
to find the money required? Were it to be just the former, a parsimonious finance
ministry would hamstring operational planning. In the latter case, quixotic
threat assessments would evoke unreasonable demands for funds.

Clearly there
must be a consultative, iterative process that harmonises financial flows with
the imperatives of national security. The finance minister already has the structure
--- the defence accounts department headed by the Comptroller General of
Defence Accounts, working under the Secretary (Defence Finance). The military, lamentably,
has no empowered tri-service commander or headquarters that can authoritatively
adjudicate and prioritise between the three services. Instead there is an
ineffectual halfway house, the Headquarters of Integrated Defence Staff, which
the defence ministry set up in 2001 to avoid appointing a chief of defence staff
(CDS), which a mistrustful government fears as an unwelcome concentration of military
power.

Even the watered
down alternative to a CDS --- a four-star, permanent chairman of the chiefs of
staff committee (COSC) that the Naresh Chandra Task Force recommended last year
--- has been scuttled by the MoD. Consequently, each service plans in competitive
isolation, making maximalist demands and then negotiating with other two services
to expand its budgets, force levels and turf.

In the
circumstances, a yawning gulf between plans and reality is inevitable. The LTIPP
lists the purchase of 126 Rafale fighters, a Rs 1 lakh crore ($16 billion) acquisition
that will require Rs 15,000 crore (15 per cent) in down payment when the
contract is signed. The reality is that this year’s capital budget for new
purchases is under Rs 5,000 crore. Where will the air force get Rs 15,000 crore
that the plan provides for? Will the finance and defence ministries triple the allocation?
If yes, will the army and navy forego other equipment they planned to buy this
year?

Clearly
hard prioritisation is needed to match demands to budgets. This cannot be left
to the three services, which compete for the same pot of gold. Most operational
tasks, such as the destruction of an enemy airbase, can be achieved with
various weapons systems held by different services. An empowered tri-service commander
would prioritise and allocate such tasks, to avoid wasteful duplication of capabilities.
Another example of waste is airspace defence, for which the air force is
allocated almost half the capital budget; yet the army and navy spend prolifically
on air defence systems, almost as if the air force was not there. This is also
true of surveillance, where each service is creating expensive capabilities. The
truth, as one general says, is, “You require two eyes to see. You don’t need
six eyes.”

Meanwhile,
without a tri-service commander, there are no joint operational tools to deal
with contingencies like a high impact terror strike in India, or a political
assassination. An Osama-style operation, with the three services operating in
tandem, is currently inconceivable.

In the
absence of a tri-service commander, army, navy and air force interests govern
crucial decisions, rather than the larger military interest. In the chiefs of
staff committee (COSC), where the three service chiefs sit together equally, they
know unanimity is essential for the MoD to accept a decision. Consequently, they
negotiate vital procurement decisions through quid pro quos with other
services, rather than through a hard-nosed, joint evaluation of alternatives. When
the army wanted a Rs 68,000 crore mountain strike corps (MSC) for the
Sino-Indian border, there was no rigorous, tri-service evaluation of whether
China could be deterred through other means, such as a naval blockade in the
Malacca Strait, or through nuclear signalling. Nor did the army evaluate whether
one of its three existing plains strike corps could be reconfigured into a MSC.
Instead, the navy and air force agreed to pass the MSC proposal in exchange for
army concessions elsewhere, arriving clubbily at the lowest common denominator
of capability creation.

A new
government might have the energy to kick-start jointmanship. The appointment of
an empowered tri-service commander, whether CDS or permanent chairman COSC,
would be a good place to begin.

5 comments:

Problem is the self-serving culture of our Longest-ruling political party in India. The only defence preparation according to them is on a "stopgap" basis. Frankly Congress Party has succeded in dividing India more than what the British had planned. In hindsite its the single most disasterous entity to weaken India the most. I wonder what India would have been like had Gandhi-Nehru not been allowed to become president of Congress party. Since nobody seems to take decisive decisions at the top, its time for people to make changes to the constitution itself. Currently because of these coalition politics, India is taking 1 step forward and 100 steps backward.

You mentioned last year that Govt was going to appoint Lt Gen Chait as the next Chief but Mr Suhag ended up as the one.I wonder your assessment was wrong Colonel!

Was that article based on facts or you were doing someone's bidding? Defense Industry Daily has been poking hole in your financial theory on Pilatus PC-7 aircraft as well. I reckon you need to clarify few things to your audience.

Nevertheless, If Indian Government becomes ever sane enough and appoints a Joint Commander on top, you would get the largest share of credit for your almost dogged pursuit for the one.

Pardon me as I am asking an query on an unrelated thread. Could you please tell me why Indian Armored Corps not have a separate gun (MMG or GPMG) for commanders turret. A standard of every army is to have a 12.7 mm HMG, a coaxial MMG and a MMG/GPMG in front of the commander's turret.

A commander for all of the three forces? I can see you mean a coordinator, not a commander. And if you mean a coordinator at the top most level, what else is a Defence minister? We have a tendency to keep adding echelons without ensuring that those who exist do their job.